5 reasons to look forward to the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL)

The IPTL is set to begin in a week’s time If the Champions Tennis League has excited tennis fans in India and around the world, you could say that it is just a trailer of what is to come. The International Premier Tennis League is scheduled to start in a week’s time and it’s going to be one of the biggest sporting events around the world.The players are ready, the stadiums are set and the tickets are almost sold out. In about two weeks’ time, tennis fans in India will get to see a new exciting format of tennis with some great players playing right in front of their eyes. Here are 5 reasons to look forward to the glamorous event which starts next week and is scheduled to reach India on the 6th of December.

#1 Chance to watch the best in action

The best from around the world are set to take part in the IPTL

Tennis fans in India have been deprived of top class tennis action for long, and have hardly ever got to see the elite tennis stars in action. With only one ATP 250 tournament which happens at the beginning of every year, tennis fans in India get to see about only about three or four big tennis players play live in front of their eyes. Watching the stars of tennis live in action has pretty much been a pipe dream for Indian fans.

The IPTL is surely going to make the dreams of thousands of fans across India come true. They will get to watch the biggest stars of tennis play right in front of their eyes. The tournament is going to have the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Serena Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, Eugenie Bouchard, Pete Sampras, Pat Cash and a host of other tennis superstars taking part in the tournament.

Indian fans’ prayers of getting to watch the big names play right in front of their eyes will finally be answered!

#2 New, exciting format

With so many tennis superstars participating in this glamorous event, playing it in the traditional format would have probably taken too long. Hence, the organisers came up with a new and exciting format which will see all players of a particular team play a five-set match. In this way, the fans would not have to wait for a very long time to watch every player play.

The format is almost the same as the Champions Tennis League; there will be a five-set match which will have men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles and legends’ singles. The team with the most number of games won in a match would win.

Besides this, there would be no-ad scoring (after deuce, the winner of the next point would win the game), and the tie-breaker has been replaced by a ‘shoot-out’ (the players play in the traditional tie-breaker format, but only for five minutes; whoever is leading at the five-minute mark, wins the shoot-out).

All the rules regarding the format are explained on the official site of the International Premier Tennis League.

#3 Interesting match-ups

This rivalry could be re-ignited

With a host of world class players playing for different teams, there are a lot of interesting and world class match-ups in store. Fans will get to see Roger Federer take on Novak Djokvic and Andy Murray. Also, old rivalries such as the Sampras-Agassi one would be re-ignited when these two legends take the court.

We could also see some entertaining match-ups when crowd pleasers like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils take on each other. The Indian tennis fans will also get to watch their beloved Rohan Bopanna and Sania Mirza play a set of mixed doubles together in each match that the Indian Aces play.

#4 A possible precursor to another ATP/WTA tournament in the future

Hoping for another ATP tournament in India

With only one ATP 250 tournament in India and no WTA tournaments, fans are desperate to see more professional matches taking place in the country. One thing the IPTL would surely do is increase the number of tennis fans in India. And an increase in the number of tennis fans in the country could pave the way for the WTA to come back to the country, and also probably for another ATP tournament to join the fairly successful Chennai Open.

Indian fans would surely love to see the likes of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and the other stars play professional tennis in India. So another reason or Indian tennis fans to look forward to the IPTL is the hope that it brings for another professional tournament to take place in the country.

#5 Popularizing tennis in India

One of the main aims of the IPTL is to popularise tennis in the Asian region. By popularising the sport, it could pave the way for a lot more tennis academies with good training facilities and top quality coaches to open up in the country.

India has a very small amount of academies, with poor facilities as of now, which is one of the reasons as to why a lot of youngsters do not take up the sport. Even if they do, they are forced to play doubles in many of those academies because of the shortage of courts.

By opening more academies, there would be more number of courts and good facilities with coaches, and hence, more number of youngsters taking up the sport.